David R. Hill enjoys giving tours of his Class 2 injection wells, which daily dispose of thousands of gallons of water used in the hydraulic fracturing process in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

“I like telling our story because we have a good story to tell,” he said.

Hill conducted a recent tour of his facility for members of the news media in the region. His two wells are just north of the crossroads town of Claysville, about 10 miles southwest of Cambridge in the rolling hills of southern Guernsey County.

The facility has three full-time employees and one part-time employee.

Hill has given numerous tours of the operation to educate people about injection wells, he said.

“It’s easy to fear what you don’t know,” Hill said. “It’s better for more people to know about this.” Pointing to the rural surroundings of his well, he added, “The sky is blue, the grass is green and men have jobs. Show me something wrong with that.”

Injection wells — which have been banned in some parts of Ohio — garnered media attention earlier this year after a well in the Mahoning Valley was linked to a dozen earthquakes that rocked the Youngstown area. The well was shut down by the state.

The Ohio Oil and Gas Association was “four-square in favor” of the decision, said Hill, who is secretary/treasurer of the organization. But he added that he was not totally convinced that the well was responsible for the quakes.

Hill is the second generation of his family to work in the oil and gas industry. A geologist for the past 32 years, he has been involved in drilling between 1,500 and 2,000 wells.

He decided to drill an injection well because his company needed a place to dispose of water from its oil wells. Hill had been using wells owned by other people, but that proved to be expensive.

The first well at the Claysville site was drilled in 2007 and the second — located 3,000 feet away from the first — was drilled this year. Both are about 9,000 feet deep, and each can dispose of a maximum of 2,000 barrels per day. On average, they take in about 1,500 barrels each day.

The first cost $1.5 million to drill, and the second cost $2 million, Hill said.

He owns a third injection well in Belmont County, which is 13,725 feet deep, making it the deepest well in Ohio. It was drilled in collaboration with the Battelle Institute of Columbus.

The Guernsey County facility accepts water six days a week from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tanker trucks bring in water used in the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” process from wells in the region. About half comes from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the other half from Ohio.

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“We look for that percentage to go much higher from Ohio,” Hill said.

There are currently 177 injection wells in the state, and he anticipates that more will be needed as drilling expands in Ohio.

HOW IT WORKS

When the trucks arrive, hoses are attached to them, which transfer the fracking water from the trucks to a series of holding tanks. The trucks park on a concrete pad. If any water leaks from the hoses, it is caught in a catch basin and then pumped into the holding tanks.

The facility has 20 tanks, where the water is allowed to settle. The tanks are surrounded by a dike and sit on top of a impervious plastic liner, designed to keep water from leaking into the ground, Hill said.

“No water gets away from us,” he added.

Once the water has been allowed to settle, it is sent through filters to remove any grit or grim that might damage the pumps. The water is then pumped out to the well, which sits in a cow field behind the facility.

The water is then injected 9,000 feet below the surface into a layer of porous, spongy rock, where it will remain — forever, Hill said. The well is surrounded by three layers of casing and three layers of cement to prevent a leak.

“We go to great lengths to protect the freshwater,” he said.

Hill said aquifers, which provide drinking water, do not go below 500 feet, so 8,500 feet of rock separates the water that people drink from fracking water.

As the well fills up, pressure increases in the wells. Hill said his company monitors the pressure constantly, and it has equipment that shuts down the wells automatically if the pressure goes too high. “We’ve never hit the maximum pressure,” he said.

Thanks to Senate Bill 315, Ohio has some of the toughest laws in the nation when it comes to injection wells, according to Hill. He noted that the legislation provided more money to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to fund its regulatory efforts.

In addition, paperwork has to be filled out in each step of the process as fracking water goes from an oil and gas well to an injection well. “There is paperwork that follows that water through the process,” he said.

Hill acknowledged that there are risks involved in oil and gas drilling and in injecting fracking water back into the ground, but the risks can be managed by ODNR.

“Drilling and exploration for oil and gas and preserving the environment — we can do both,” Hill said. “In the U.S., we’re smart enough to do both.”